He shot over 5,000 stags before a bullet ended his own life. Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este, died on June 28, 1914 when a Serb nationalist fired two shots at his open motorcar as it drove through the streets of Sarajevo.
One bullet ruptured the archduke's windpipe, while the other penetrated his wife's abdomen. They both died.
The assassination cast the Belle Ã?poque into a worldwide conflagration. But who was this man whose violent death triggered World War I? Historians have described the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne as "volcanic" and "irascible." They have called his passion for hunting (he brought down 274,889 game animals) "feudal mass slaughter."
At the same time, however, he had plans for far-reaching reform in the Balkans. Karl Kraus, a contemporary Austrian writer and journalist, actually took a liking to the royal grouch and concluded that the archduke was not a warmonger.
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